


A (Totally Ironic) Homestuck Christmas

by Benzaiten (DaughterOfTheWest)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Christmas, Dave learns a lesson, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Irony, It's not really relationshippy, M/M, Party at the Lalondes' house, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Prankster's Gambit, Ugly Christmas Sweaters, shipping is only implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 08:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterOfTheWest/pseuds/Benzaiten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dave begins expressing a solely ironic interest in spreading Christmas cheer, Roxy and John decide to prank him into an ever-escalating war of holiday spirit involving ugly Christmas sweaters, SBAHJ gingerbread cookies, and Kidzbop. Lessons are learned, hugs are shared, food is eaten-- and most importantly, a merry time is had by all.</p>
<p>A fluffy little Christmas-themed prankster's romp for Hazelshade12, in honor of Giftstuck. Happy Holidays!</p>
            </blockquote>





	A (Totally Ironic) Homestuck Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> The request was for fluff that didn't have to be shippy in particular, but I decided to take Jade/Karkat and John/Roxy (because they are adorable) and make those the only strongly implied ships. Mostly I just wanted to write ongoing pranking shenanigans and Dave secretly being really un-ironically into Christmas.
> 
> I hope you like this, Hazelshade12! Merry Giftstuck, and a happy new year! :)

The saga began with one horrendously ugly Christmas sweater.

Dave made a point of beginning Christmas before the remains of the Thanksgiving turkey had cooled. “Irony,” he said, decking the halls with shitty JPEG ornaments in garish SBAHJ colors, “C’mon dude, I’ve got a chance for the first time in a long time to be one of those annoying people who get all up in the holiday spirit like that shit’s a chimney and they’re Santa. Can’t pass it up.” John had originally confronted him about the heinous yellow-and-cyan sweater that Kanaya had been complaining about as she and Jake cleaned up the dishes, but the discovery of Dave’s “Christmas spirit” was too good an opportunity for pranks to let it go untaken!

It took a few days of cajoling Rose (who participated primarily in the passive-aggressive spirit of one-upmanship that drove her to outdo Dave’s ironic attempts and push him to ever more dramatic lengths to get back at her) before Roxy and John procured the materials to make a sincere Christmas out of Dave’s ironic one—Rose agreed to knit stockings for everyone, Kanaya to make a Santa Claus costume for John to fly down the chimney in. Roxy had gleefully hopped on the bandwagon when John approached her to ask about some possible android reprogramming for his effort to subvert the “ironic Christmas”, and she brought Jane and AR onto the team for sleuth work and distraction tactics, respectively. After all, who was going to keep Dirk (the more wary and observant of the two, and the first person Dave would ask to investigate) off of the scent of their plan better than AR? Jake would have been a liability, what with those loose lips of his. Lil’ Hal was perfect—a constant enough presence not to be suspicious, a sly enough player to keep his real mission on the down-low—and Hal himself was glad to assist in pranking.

And so phase one began with little things. Candy canes on Dave’s door, snowflake decorations appearing in brief flashes on the screen of Dirk’s shades. Roxy replaced the crappy SBAHJ ornaments on the Kringlefucker with real ones and decked out the fireplace with boots that were not-so-conksuck, which Dave noticed when walking through the living room one morning and asked John about— to which Egbert shrugged and continued dicking around on the internet.

Dave wasn’t sure where the newly-appeared non-conksuck stockings came from but they had to have been connected to Rose. No one else could have made so many personalized stockings unless they had started months in advance, and she wasn’t exactly filled to the brim with the Christmas spirit; but Rose denied all knowledge. So did Kanaya. Terezi just cackled and admired the audacity of the Twelfth Perigee’s fairy.

“Why don’t you go and get all Law and Order on this shit and figure out what the hell is happening?” Dave tried to frame the suggestion casually, like he hadn’t been hoping for a while now that Terezi would have done precisely that without him having to ask it. She grinned that ubiquitous draconian grin: “And ruin all of the fun? Dave, I may be dedicated to justice but that hardly makes me a spoil sport!”

So he turned to Jane. That was a mistake, for Dave forgot that Jane, sleuth of the century, also happened to be prankstress extraordinaire—and not about to give up her friends’ plot so flippantly.

“Seriously Janey, you don’t know anything about this shit?”

Jane shrugged innocently, pulling a tray of snowmen cookies out of the oven, “I’m sorry mister Strider, but I just can’t help you with your problem. Cookie?”

Dave grabbed a gingerbread man from the already cooled plate and munched on it while she began frosting, “Can’t, or won’t?”

She paused to give him a pointed look, “Can’t. Now are you going to help me get these ready for the Christmas Eve party or not?” Dave grunted and stood to grab a shaker, already picking out cookies to decorate in SBAHJ-worth shitty sprinkle pixels.

 

Dirk, meanwhile, had staged his own investigation.

TT: There is a 102.341% chance you are being a paranoid asshat right now, bro.

“And what data is that based on?”

TT: Some data I pulled out of my ass 3.2 seconds ago.

“Cut the bullshit numbers already, that joke template went stale around the time I initially programmed it.”

TT: I cannot be held accountable for any hypothetically stale-as-fossilized-bread jokes you yourself programmed me to find absolutely hilarious. Because they are, even if your sour ass intends on being bitter and jealous of my mad comedic skills.

“Ugh, just tell me what the fuck you found out already.”

AR paused as if to “le signnn” and Dirk reminded himself to talk to Roxy about giving Hal too many ideas about comedic hyperbole.

TT: No, Dirk, lil’ bro is not being sabotaged by a magical Christmas fairy. Are you happy now?

Something was off— “You’re being awfully concise for someone who loves the sight of his own text, dude.”

TT: Well look who’s talking, I only learned from the best.

“We are not getting into the whole ‘same person’ argument again—”

TT: It’s not an argument when it’s unequivocally true.

“Ugh, you’re such a little piece of shit—”

TT: Whoa there brolene, you’re going to make this whole fucking glass palace come tumbling down if you keep throwing brones everywhere.

The argument continued in a similar vein of bropuns and bullshit for another ten minutes before Dirk gave up and stormed off to Jake’s room, leaving his shades on his desk. AR would have grinned (if he had a human-meatbag face to do so with).

 

Dave persisted in his ironic Christmas efforts, ever-heightening them in the hopes of deterring the saboteurs—but if anything, the escalation just spurred on the competition. Crappy Christmas lights blinking on and off in gaudy colors were replaced with strings of clean white icicle lights that tastefully lined the bannisters of the Lalonde residence. Roxy and John very nearly got caught when Dave walked by while they were de-SBAHJing the Christmas tree, but managed to hide (thanks to Roxy’s void powers) and leave Dave nothing short of befuddled. Kanaya and Rose replaced every heinous sweater in Dave’s closet with tailored, Maryam-approved pieces that he ended up wearing proudly in retaliation. Jane and Jade even managed to switch out his (completely ironic) Kidzbop Christmas Remixes CD playing on loop with classic tunes that weren’t the sonic equivalent of cyan comic sans.

Dave was slowly going “shithive maggots” (in the words of one Karkat Vantas) over the course of the days leading up to the 25th: who the hell was fucking with his Christmas? John was the obvious answer, but so many of the pranks had to have happened while he was in plain sight that Dave had started to doubt the instinct. Roxy? She’d been around for a lot of them, too. Unless someone else was time traveling--

But what was disturbing more than the mystery culprit or their incredible pranking ability was this: Dave was _enjoying_ it. He liked nice sweaters and he liked classy-as-fuck lights and he hated Kidzbop with a passion but that was the ironic music selection to play, right? Bro would have been down, and Dirk seemed to condone it-- but they were both hardcore. Masters. Could it be that he… wasn’t ironic enough? 

The whole shitstorm came to a height when Karkat stormed in on Christmas Eve demanding to know “WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK IS GOING ON WITH YOU TRAPSTAINS AND THIS DUMBASS NOOKCHAFING PRANK WAR HOOFBEASTSHIT?“ and making Jade have to go over and red-shoosh him into a decent speaking volume. 

“Okay, now what did you want to know?” Jade asked rhetorically, giving Karkat a look that read ‘calm the fuck down or so help me--’.

“OK, SERIOUSLY. DAVE CAME TO ME EARLIER ABOUT SOME EMOTIONAL CRISIS--” 

“Bro--”

“--BECAUSE SOME FUCKERS KEEP MESSING WITH HIS 12TH PERIGEE’S DECORATIONS AND I WANT TO KNOW WHICH OF YOU SHITSTAINS IS RESPONSIBLE SO I CAN TEAR YOU A NEW WASTECHUTE.“

A knowing glance passed around the room.

“Ahem--” John cleared his throat and smiled his best bucktoothed charmer’s smile, “Well, I mean, we didn’t want to say anything because spoiling a Christmas present would just be really lame, but…” 

Roxy wedged herself in next to him, wonking at Dave and taking a sip of her (non-alcoholic) eggnog, “Okay we did it. We are the masters of prankdom, it is us!” She hiccuped, “Buuuut we also had some help from pretty much everyone else around here. Except for Dirk, you, and Jake, but pretty much everyone else.” 

The room was silent, Dave’s face impassive but cherry red. Karkat’s cheeks were flushing.

Roxy smiled in the way only guilty pranksters can, “Sooooooo, it was a group present?”

Karkat looked ready to shout again, even though Jade had a firm hand on his shoulder-- but before he could unleash a vulgar-worded admonishment on pretty much everyone gathered in the living room around the Christmas tree, Dave stepped in.

“Karkat. Just cool it for a second, bro.”

“Huh?” John and Karkat both registered surprise.

Dave nodded, folding his arms over a not-so-gaudy Christmas sweater, “I, uh, don’t know. I think I figured something out. Learned a lesson or whatever. I had a fucking great time putting up all of my ironic holiday shit, because it’s Christmas and all, but I’m not going to lie: the actual holiday shit is way better. And looks fucking awesome, in a totally unironic sense. Like, you guys fucking outdid me, honestly, even though it was a prank. And it looks pretty sweet in here, right?”

It did, in fact, look pretty damn sweet. The wizard statues were decked in santa hats and holly and fake snow, lights twinkling from the tree and festive cookies sitting in perfectly-poised platters throughout the living room. The fire had been burning in the hearth and it all smelled like warm spices and pine needles and gingerbread, thanks to Jane's baking skills. Shit was Martha Stewart levels of fine, if he did say so himself.

“So, basically, fuck you guys for pranking me-- but it _was_ pretty awesome, so I’m going to be nice and forgive you all for being dicks." 

John stood up and wrapped Dave in a bro-hug, which Dave accepted but eventually had to pry himself out of, "Now, can we skip the moralistic bullshit and rejoicing and get to the part where we eat food and open presents?”

John grinned, "Hell yes!"


End file.
